Plastic Soldier Company 20mm Afrika Korp review

Today I'm taking a look at one of my favourite subjects, the Afrika Korp. Having picked up the new PSC platoon set at Salute, I've been eagerly working on Afrika Korp ever since.










I opted for the platoon set after admiring a few of the figures in blisters, and decided that I wanted them to make up the bulk of my infantry forces in my growing DAK collection. The set contains 39 white metal figures, wearing a mix of steel helmets and M40 tropical caps, no pith helmets are included.

For equipment, the 39 figures include the following,

3 NCO's with MP40's, split across two poses. One wearing a helmet and pointing, the other advancing bracing his weapon.

6 machine gun teams. Each team consists of the men, and wear a mix of helmets and tropical caps. These figures can also be freely intermingled to create some variety, and are posed either standing and advancing or prone firing.
 
 Worth mentioning is the separate bipod for the prone gun team, as this adds and extra level of finesse to the finished models. Each team comprises one gunner, and two loader/assistant types.

The rest of the set is made up of riflemen, wearing the same mix of head gear. All are armed with K98 rifles, and have a pleasing variety of field gear and skirmishing poses. between  the mix of head gear and poses, I think there are about 10 different poses, and look nicely varied when assembled.






The figures are white metal, and casting was for the most part very clean, though I did have a few mould lines and areas of flash to clean up, however this didn't take long and lines were in accessible places and didn't interfere with any detail.

It took me a little while to notice, however several of the figures wearing helmets have their field caps tucked into their belts, which I thought was a great little touch. Unforms are all the standard tropical issue stuff, with everyone wearing long trousers and tunics.

In terms of compatibility with other ranges, the figures are very close to AB in proportions, however they also mix very well with Kellys Heroes, Brittania and Italeri. I do not have any Wartime Miniatures DAK to hand at present.

At £40 for the set, I think this is good value as it's provided me with the bulk of the infantry I'll need for my Afrika Korp project, and I'm hopefully the range will sell well and we can see it expanded with command and support weapon options. For now, I've added those elements from Kellys Heroes and Britannia ranges, and find the over all effect most pleasing.

You can get your own platoon of DAK from the PSC website here, and listen to our podcast episode where we speak to one of the minds behind Battlegroup Tobruk, Mr Piers Brand here.
Finally, you can see more of my work or contact me regarding commissions at Volley Fire Painting Service

The Brit, The Yank and the Hobby episode 22 Sea lion

 

In Episode 22 we are joined by author, scientist and games designer John Lambshead, with his latest work, the Sea Lion supplement for Bolt Action. 

John talks to us about some of the history and new game mechanics he's added, as well as the historical basis for what is arguably the biggest campaign that never was.

You can listen to the show at the following links from 05/05/2017

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Come on over to our facebook group to join in the discussion, and drop by Johns blog to see what he's up to as well! I'll have an in depth look at the new book here very soon as well... 

Battlegroup Tobruk over view

As a fan of WW2 gaming in the desert campaigns of WW2 (You can see my 28mm Perry DAK force here), one of the most anticipated gaming releases for me this year has to be the Tobruk supplement for the excellent Battlegroup rule set. For those yet to be initiated into Battlegroup, I've written a handy introduction to the game. 

Battlegroup: Tobruk, covers the period 1940-41, from the Italian campaigns in East Africa up to the Operation Crusader and the Gazala line, as well as Operation Mercury and the German invasion of Crete. 

Tobruk follows the now familiar format of a big hardback book, consisting of just under 200 glossy paper pages with a blend of photos, art work, history and gaming information. Special mention must be made of the photos however as the lads have put some time into finding previously unpublished photos.






 Not massively important from a purely gaming perspective perhaps, but certainly adds massively to the feel of a high quality book.  Bindings feel sturdy too, and the book should stand up well to the rigours of handling and transporting to games. 

No index is included, however the contents page is very thorough, and the end of the book contains a quick reference sheet, pull out sheets of vehicle cards, and then appendices of references for vehicles and weapon stats making finding the information you need a simple process.











New Rules
The initial part of the book covers the history of the eaerly desert campaigns, before the reader is brought to the special rules for playing games in the desert, to differentiate these from the other supplements. Briefly, these are;

• Combined operations for Afrika Korp and Italian forces.
• Mobile Warfare, where in meeting engagements infantry and gun crews need to be transported.
• Vehicle Wear and tear, reflecting the effects of the harsh desert conditions on the maintainability of equipment.  
• Desert Dust Clouds, fairly self evident! This represents the increasingly poor visibility through an engagement. 
• Low on Fuel, representing the logistical difficulties presented with desert warfare.
• Mandatory infantry restrictions are lower 
• Rules for Portees ammunition capacity.
• Rules for raiding forces and paratroops
• Rules to represent the difficulty in communications, and adjusting artillery bombardments. 
• Reproductions of other rules such as communications, mortar spotter, dispatch etc for ease of access. 

Army Lists

Army lists come next, with lists for British Infantry and Armoured division battle groups, these are similar to those in Blitzkrieg, however come with updates and extra units suitable for the desert war. Particularly exciting (To me) are the addition of LRDG patrols to the reconnaissance section. Amendments are also included for playing the East African campain. 

Italian armoured and infantry division battle groups are also included, and the infantry list provides options for regular infantry, Black Shirts, or Colonial infantry platoons, as well as an amendment list for the East African campaign. 
The Italian armoured platoon provides options for both truck and bike mounted Bersaglieri for it's infantry support

The DAK platoon list is similar to the Blitzkrieg panzer grenadier platoon, though with less half-tracks, and some options for cool toys and lots of machine guns and anti tank weaponry. Options for captured equipment are quite prevalent too, with captured artillery, armoured cars and tanks available. 

In addition to the previously mentioned British and Italian platoons, LRDG and Auto Saharana patrols also get army lists for light, raiding formations, these are designed to be used in games of 350 points or less. These offer some very interesting and exciting gaming options for light vehicle fun, as well as a scenario for a meeting engagement between a patrol of each. 









For Crete, 2 further army lists are included, the first, unsurprisingly covers the 7th Flieger division full of air portable Fallschirmjager options, with a few Gebirgsjager thrown in too for a bit of extra fire power. These are very light infantry forces, but also highly motivated and quite tough.


Final army list is for the defenders of Crete, and covers both Cretan and Greek local forces, as well as supporting commonwealth troops. The force has a good selection of artillery and fire support, however armoured support is quite restricted.

Scenarios 

Tobruk comes with 3 scenarios featuring historical re fights for the desert war in general, including one raiding force scenario for the LRDG and Auto Saharans. a 5 scenario mini campaign following the Tobruk siege, and finally 2 more for the Battle of Crete, though the Airlanding scenario and rules could be translated easily into other forces with a little light lateral thinking... 

On Episode 20 of the Brit, the Yank and the hobby we chat to Piers Brand, one of the dark and devious minds behind the book, and you can find where to listen to it here. 

Overall, this is a magnificent book, and a fantastic tool for desert gaming in the early part of WW2. I'm looking forwards to getting some games in, and am currently assembling some 20mm Afrika Korp at the moment... 

You can find Battlegroup Tobruk, and the rest of the Battlegroup range at the Plastic Soldier Company site, and see more of my work at Volley Fire Painting Services.

The Brit, The Yank and the Hobby Episode 20, Battlegroup Tobruk

This week Piers from Battlegroup fame joins us to discuss the new Tobruk supplement and talk about all things Italy in the desert. 
You can join the discussion at our facebook group, or listen directly to the show at the links below. 

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The Brit, The Yank, and the Hobby episode 9

Episode 9 of our historical gaming podcast is now live, and can be found at the following links

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For more information, and to speak to us directly, as well as find photo's and models related to this episode come on over and join our Facebook Group, at The Brit, The Yank, and The Hobby.

Introduction to Battlegroup

I've recently become interested in the game Battlegroup, from Ironfist Publishing and distributed via Plastic Soldier Company, and thought it about time I shared some thoughts on the game and gave an over view of the rule set and books available.

 You can hear more about Battlegroup in the Brit, The Yank and the Hobby, where we speak to Piers Brand in episodes 3 and 6 (Links to the Facebook page and Libsyn downloads). 

Battlegroup is a very scalable game set in the Second World War. You can play anything from squad to battalion level games using these rules. Forces can either be selected as per a historical scenario, or through pointed army lists, and these lists are provided in campaign specific books that contain rules scenarios and history for their respective forces. Battlegroup is a D6 based system.

Battlegroup is designed with 15 and 20mm sized miniatures in mind, however it also plays well at 28mm, and can be used with smaller scales too with some adjustment to ranges if required.

 

Each force must contain a required minimum amount of infantry, and this varies depending on points level. A platoon level game therefore requires you to have at least one infantry platoon, although this covers both leg and mechanised types usually. Once you have your infantry you are free to add in support elements such as artillery, armour, command and logistical and strategic elements. 

Logistics are important in Battlegroup as ammunition for vehicles is limited, and they may require resupply through the course of the battle. Forces are historical to the operation as well, so if you are playing a Normandy game you won't see anything that didn't serve in Normandy in the army lists for example. 

Turn Sequence

Battlegroup is an I go U go system, with the first turn (Unless in a specific scenario), being decided by the roll of a dice, and then adding the number of officers in the the force to the die roll. whomever has the highest score then decides whether to go first or second. 

At the start of their turn, the player rolls a die (1 or more depending on the level of the game) and adds  to this the number of officers they have. This is the number of units they can activate in a turn. Units activated are able to perform 2 things, generally a combination of moving and shooting, though there are other specialised orders as well, and it is possible to shoot and then move too. 

in practice this tends to result in fairly quick turns, as though you may have a lot of units on the board, you have to prioritise what you want to do, and what you wish to achieve, making battles very tactical and forcing a level of coordination. Everything action has to be considered as part of an overall plan, making battles a game of attack and counter attack. 

Movement

Movement is fairly standard, with models moving up to their maximum move distance, and they are also able to perform a double move to forgo firing and gain more ground. Broadly speaking, terrain affects movement by subtracting D6" from the move, with models always able to move a minimum of 1".  Roads allow vehicles to travel faster, and most vehicles have their own individual on and off road movement distances shown in their profiles.

Shooting

Shooting is again carried out through an order, with models able to give up moving to fire a second time in a turn. Shooting is split into 2 different types. Area Fire allows you to pin  enemy units, you simply add up the number of shots being fired, then roll over the required score. If you equal or exceed this amount, and the target fails it's cover save they become pinned and unable to activate until it is unpinned.  

Aimed Fire is the more traditional shooting to neutralise a target, and requires a spotting roll to see the target. Once this is passed roll a dice for each shot to hit, the required score is target dependent and modified by distance a few other factors. For each hit the target takes a cover save, and those that are failed inflict casualties.

 Vehicles don't take a cover save and instead the penetration value of the weapon is compared to the targets armour value. If this value is exceeded on 2 die the target is destroyed. 

Assault

Infantry units can be issued a close assault order, to close to with 5" of an enemy unit., be it infantry or vehicle. 

The assault itself is resolved as with shooting, although observation is automatic, and the attack is permitted and extra die to represent grenades being thrown and the impetus of the assault. Unpinned enemies fight back in the same way and simultaneously, although they do not receive the extra die. Pinned enemies do not get to fight back at all, rendering coordination between suppressive units and assaulting units very important.  

Game resolution

Unless playing a scenario with specific objectives, battles is usually decided by a force exceeding it's battle rating. battle rating, or BR is calculated by adding up the BR in your force before the start of the game, and as units are lost, or other situations occur a chit is drawn numbered between 1-5 secretly kept. 

The first player to exceed this rating loses. Some chits also add in an extra level of unpredictability with things like air and mine strikes also being possible. In some ways its like drawing a chance card in Monopoly, it might be good, it might be bad, and it can be one extreme or the other of this too and lends a real air of unpredictability to it. 

There is obviously far more to the game than I have mentioned above, but this gives a little bit of an insight into how Battlegroup plays. some of the source books are currently out of print but can be found on Ebay, and can also be purchased as PDF's direct from Plastic Soldier Company as well. 

Pictures of the game in action were taken at Medway Wargames Society in Walderderlade between my mate Chris' Russians and my Germans, and was a very narrow victory to the Russians. In my opinion Battlegroup is an excellent rule set, and gives a good historical feel without getting bogged down, and maintains a great flow, especially when using 2-3 platoons worth of toys with additional support elements.

You can see more pictures of my steadily growing 20mm forces or contact me regarding commissions  at Volley Fire Painting Service.

Bolt Action Empires in Flames overview

First off let me apologise for not getting this article out sooner, I had intended to publish this at launch, however work got in the way, and I wanted to do a proper article for this book rather than rushing something incomplete.

Empire in Flames is the fourth book in Warlords theatre book series for Bolt Action following on from Battleground Europe, Ostfront and Germany Strikes. Empires in Flames is a 124 page, soft back full colour book, and is written by the esteemed Andy Chambers.

The book divides into six sections. The first is a prologue explaining what the book is, before going into the meat Empires in Flames.

The Second Sino-Japanese War.

This is probably the longest section of the book, taking up over a third of the page count, and covers the conflict in China from 1937 until 1945, with a brief over view of the history, before providing many new units and theatre selectors. Some of the units may be familiar from the earlier books, but most of these are all new.Although the book lists the theatre selectors before the Chinese army list, I'll briefly mention that first.

Empires in Flames adds the first new army to Bolt Action since the last Armies of book came out a few years ago. The force is divided between Nationalist, Communist and Warlord forces to represent the difficult political situation that was present in China during the period. The Chinese forces have several national sepcial rules, those these break down into a per faction basis, as you have to pick whether to play Nationalists, Warlords, or Communist forces. Unique to all of these though is a free 14 man inexperienced infantry squad, similar to the Russians.

Communist forces are given a rule that represents their useage of gurellia tactics, and allows their infantry units to move up to 9" before the game begins! Warlord and Nationalist forces recieve the bodyguard rule, which allows their commanders to sacrifice the body guard (A unique Chinese character) in their command squad to stop the commander becoming a victim to snipers and exceptional damage. 

Nationalist forces are the best equipped, and depending on the period get access to German or Western Allied trained units, and equipment, notably things like German trained infantry squads, MMG Teams with the Hitlers buzzsaw rule, and allied armour like the Sherman, they also get access to the Big Sword squad, based on the society of the same name, and possibly the coolest unit now in Bolt Action!

Warlord forces represent local warlords, unsurprisingly. Warlord forces have a fairly limited range of equipment, however their command squad is probably the most potent in the game, being large, having a big command bubble, and good options, as well as great command bonuses too, and also has the option to be upgraded to cavalry. 

The Communist army is provided with some early Russian armour, and also has access to small guerilla and scout units. The army looks quite fun to play with lots of small, lightly equipped units, I suspect it will be fragile, but very fluid to use.

The theatre selectors are as follows, For the Chinese army

• Battle of Shanghai 1937

• Battle of Tai'Erzhuang 1938

• 8th Route Army 1937-45

• X and Y Force 1942-45

• Tank War:- Chinese Armour, though this is more a paragraph than a full selector describing how the Chinese armour was organised

 For the Japanese

• IJA Kwangtung army 1937
• IJA Kwangtung army 1945 

 And for the Russians there is the Soviet Army of Manchuria of 1945.

Each of these provides interesting new frameworks for players with existing armies, and I'm quite drawn to the X and Y force list, and at some stage in the future I'll look to making some Chinese Nationalist figures equipped from US stocks, and supported by Warlords new Merrils Marauders figures.

New units for the Sino-Japanese war include Japanese cavalry command, Japanese cavalry squads, Japanese scouts squads, a couple of nice new artillery pieces,  the type 92 armoured car, and the SS-Ki armoured engineering vehicle. This is an awesome looking machine, and although it has the option to pack several flame throwers, the armour is paper thin, and it can only fire one per turn...  The Russians get the Mongolian Cavalry Troop, and all forces in the game get access to the horse drawn limber, a cheap way to shift artillery around without paying for an expensive towing vehicle.  Rounding out the Sino-Japanese war section are 3 special characters, one for Japan, and 2 for China. 

The Red Sun Rises 

This section covers the Japanese attacks on Singapore, the Dutch East Indies and the Phillipines, and covers making a short campaign using a couple of new scenarios added in this book, as well as the existing scenarios in the main rule book, and handily also provides a bit of advice on what terrain to use asa well.

New units are Phillipine Scouts and a Phillipino character for the US army, and there is also a theatre selector for the Battling Bastards of Bataan, a largely inexperienced US list, but one that looks like being great fun to model. This is another that has caught my imagination, and may well end up in one of my figure cases one day... 

Burma and India

I was deeply shocked and pleasantly surprised to discover this section detailed the fighting in Burma and India,  and covers the whole period with a brief history of the campaign, a couple of scenarios, and another guide to playing out the campaign with a guide to what scenarios and terrain to use.

No theatre selectors this time, however 5 additional units, and 2 more special characters.

New units include Ghurka Paratroopers(!!!!) Australian Commandos, Merrils Marauders and the Indian National army for the Japanese.

For all the forces in the Pacific theatre are added native scouts, these are a small unit for scouting purposes, and would add a really nice element of flavour to any army I think. 

 

It's worth mentioning the two special characters though, as the first is Orde Wingate, one of the great commanders of the Second World War, whilst the other is Bhanbhagata Gurung, a Gurkha VC winner who is equally equates to being just as awesome as you would expect in game.

Island Hopping

  This penultimate section of Empires in Flames covers not just the Campaigns in the Pacific

but also discusses the Kokoda Trail, New Guinea and the Phillipines, as well as the battle of Guadalcanal. New scenarios are added including one theme to Tarawa which I need to play, as my own US Marines are based around this battle.

3 new units for the Americans are added in this section, including USMC raiders, USMC War dogs, and the M29 Weasel amphibious utility tractor.

There are also 4 more special characters, namely John Basilone and Chesty Puller for the Americans,Tom Derrick for the Commonwealth forces and Tadamichi Kuribayashi for the Japanese. As ever with these type of characters they give a nice flavour to a force, without being especially overwhelming, and are always one sniper shot away from being out of the game...

Scenario special rules

Rounding out the book is a large section conting rules for Night fighting, digging in, minefield,s amphibious warfare and beach landings, and city fighting, as well as rules for tropical hazards!

As you can see there is a lot to digest with this book, and if you have even a hint of interest in gaming the theatre in games of Bolt Action I really recommend it. Everything is nicely produced, with lots of great artwork and colour plates from Osprey. Especially handy for painting and collecting the Chinese forces.  You can order the book from Warlord Games and buying direct will also give you a special figure of John Basilone, who I will be painting up shortly and presenting here. 

All the models and photos in this piece are from my own collection, and you can see more of my work or contact me regarding commissions at Volley Fire Painting Service. I also have a guide to how I painted my USMC, as well as a series of articles on how I collected the force here at A tale of Bearded Gamers